Sugar in the Boardroom
by EmpressTurtle
Summary: AU fic where Jean is the irritable CEO of New Sina City's most popular magazine brand, and Marco is his newly hired personal assistant. The evolution of this partnership is fraught with the butting of heads, a quest to discover the best brand of milk and just a little taste of something sweet...


If I became boss of the world, my first commandment would be to abolish stock progress meetings. Do bosses get "commandments", I wonder? I wonder, if you _were_ a boss of something as large as, say, everything in the world, whether you could simply call it whatever you want.

Probably.

I tapped my pen on the desk a few times and made the mistake of glancing at the clock, only to see that, despite Mike from accounts having gone through at least ten slides in his monochromatic presentation, no more than three minutes had passed. Three down... eighty seven left to go. I wondered briefly if I could simply walk out but that would most likely tarnish my reputation and I had worked very hard to get to this point in my career. That is to say the point where there was distinctly more people _below_ me than above.

I went for a lovely stroll through my mind while Mike's voice continued to quote figures and statistics. I went through day dreaming about cake, what life would be like if I were an astronaut, trying to deduct in my head how many sleeps it had been since I was promoted and what it would be like to live in a crazy world where I joined some manic military and got to kill, like, giants or something.

As we filed out of the meeting I was caught at the elbow by Eren from Marketing.

"Christa said she sent you an email earlier about this afternoon-" he stammered, juggling several folders with pages falling askew left, right and centre. Ahh, poor Eren. Levi had made him take notes again, I see.

"EREN!"

Levi stared at Eren and jerked his finger towards his office. Eren shot me an apologetic smile as he turned and just about fell over himself in an effort to run-without-running up the hallway. Levi, head of the Marketing department, was sitting cross-legged on an office chair, having scooted out of his office door to yell at his overworked personal assistant. "Overworked" wasn't quite the word - there was a running joke by the water cooler that it was more like "abuse" since, clearly, Eren was a masochist and seemed to love his job a little _too_ much, even when he was being berated for buying the wrong type of sticky notes _again_.

I went the other direction, down a few clean, crisp corridors until I came to my office. I closed the surprisingly light stained wood door behind me – I wasn't really in the mood to be disturbed by trivial matters today. Traffic had been unusually thick that morning, and the staff kitchen was out of full cream milk, so I had to use the low-fat stuff which didn't give my coffee as much body as it normally did – just little things that were starting to pile up in to one big ball of not-such-a-great-day.

I remained standing, stretching in my dark navy suit as I logged in to my computer and brought up my emails. Christa, the cute, perky blonde from Reception had an impossibly eloquent and polite email waiting for me asking if I would be free after 3 PM today. There was a meet-and-greet she wanted me to attend. I hadn't heard anything about any clients coming today – guess it was a good thing I always dressed for the occasion anyway. I responded positively and watched the email send while stretching my hands above my head.

One last crack of my knuckles and I was ready to get serious. I pulled up my chair and started scanning my inbox. There was the usual filler – memos for all staff regarding the new regulations in the staff carpark, a few follow up requests from senior managers and one poorly worded, grammar nightmare of an email from Hanji. Her ecclectic style and personality made her perfect for the role of Chief Artistic Director but it was like she was so far on another planet in her mind that she couldn't even take the time to spell check her communications.

"Hi Jaen," it read, "jsut letting youk now that we h ave comfirmedd our full cekebrity guest lsit for the aPril issue, okease see eattached."

I wondered if she ever got in trouble from HR for her horribly unprofessional writing. Probably not. The woman was a genius when it came to predicting popular turns in layout and design months before it happened. Coupled with her personable demeanour and the fact she knew every design program more intimately than the backs of her hands means she was a highly sought after commodity. No way would Survey Corp risk losing her.

He skimmed over the list of celebrities they had managed to secure for interviews for the March edition of "The Garrison", a well respected and trendsetting entertainment and cultural magazine run out of the New Sina City office of Survey Corp. It was business as usual, though Jean noted that Hanji had managed to secure a few big names she had been working hard to bring in – she would be in a good mood from that. He could tell she was running on a high of inspiration since she had included a tonne of layout ideas and artistic impressions of ways we could organise the spreads. I tapped out a quick note of appreciation in response and told her to keep up the good work.

By the time I had gone through all of this morning's emails and dealt with them appropriately I glanced at the clock in the corner of my computer screen and was pleasantly surprised it was lunch time already. I grabbed the sandwich I made for myself at home this morning out of my desk drawer and ventured outside my office. Nobody paid me much mind as I made my way to the elevators, jabbing the key for the highest floor with satiated enthusiasm. Eating lunch in the warm midday sun sounded nice, and the roof top gardens were normally devoid of people as most employees preferred to head downstairs to buy lunch from some of the nearby cafes.

The elevator dinged and stopped briskly and I took a step out into the refreshing outdoor air, the potted plants and trees stirring under a slight breeze. The roof was laid out for entertaining as the company often hosted gatherings and parties here – it was good for networking. Shiny wooden panelling created a curved walkway around fresh, buoyant plant arrangements in sleek metal planters with modern wooden cubes peppered around for seating.

"Hey Eren," I smiled, seeing a familiar mop of brown hair tucked in to his blazer.

Eren was lying on one of the benches, head in his folded over jacket, scrolling through something on the smart phone he was holding above his head.

"Hey," he said, and I could hear the fatigue in his voice.

"Long day?"

"You have no idea," he groaned, sitting up, the back of his hair a mess.

Eren began to smooth down his hair with quick strokes of his hand and I sat beside him, opening my sandwich and beginning to eat.

"First of all, I didn't get home until nine last night fixing all the problems with the new contracts we've had to draft up ourselves since the circulation department have no idea what they're doing. Then Levi sent me out to get the supplies for the kitchen first thing in the morning and I almost got rear ended by some maniac texting and driving and then, _then_," he waved his hands for emphasis, "I get to the store and they're totally out of full cream milk so I had to buy all skim stuff so I cop an earful from Levi when I get back because he doesn't like _"that shit" _but what was I supposed to do? If I took the time to drive to the other shop on the other side of the city he would have yelled at me for taking so long..."

I understood where Levi was coming from. The milk Eren had bought in replacement for their usual stock was complete rubbish.

"How's your day been so far?" his eyes flicked back down to fiddling with his phone,while I talked casually about my fairly uninspiring day.

When he wasn't at Levi's heel, Eren was fairly decent company as far as work colleagues go. We idly discussed some empty, light topics – what we thought of the last edition, how he thought the football match that weekend was going to go – until Eren glanced back down as his phone.

"Oh shit," he said, noticing the time. He leapt to his feet, gathering up his belongings hastily.

A sudden, overwhelming presence made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

"Eren, what time is it?"

We both jumped as Levi's presence was suddenly at our backs. His arms were crossed and his lips were pressed in a thin, hard line. Despite his physical height, he towered above his assistant. He and I were more or less bureaucratically on the same level of the corporate ladder, though he had three times my experience and then some. I would be lying if I said I didn't respect the guy and he left me alone for the most part, as busy as he was with his own work. Plus, he had Eren to bully.

Eren sucked in air sheepishly and squared his shoulders, a posture of neutrality that somehow still possessed an air of subservience.

"One thiry-eight, sir," he grimaced.

"And what time does your break end?"

"One thirty..."

Eren shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he smiled apologetically.

"See me in my office in five minutes, I think we need to have a chat..." Levi left that nasty aura hanging in the air as he turned on his heel and walked back around the wooden pathway with an elegantly poised gait.

"Oopsie..." Eren whistled, glancing sidelong at me with a grin.

"Good luck," I drawled in a sing song voice at his retreating back.

The wind ruffled my hair and I stared at the second half of my handmade sandwich with sudden disdain. Cream cheese and raw onion? Really? And how did the bread go that soggy with only those two ingredients on it? What was I thinking? My taste buds recoiled in horror. I'd lived alone for how many years and I still couldn't make a goddamn decent sandwich?

The sun moving across the sky behind my back, glinting off my office window, was about as interesting as the work before me. The time ticked by painfully slowly, and I could have sworn my clocks were stopping for intervals of almost ten minutes at a time though they said it had only been two.

It got to fifteen minutes until three and I began to get restless. I wondered who I was supposed to be meeting today, and strained for a minute or two trying to remember any appointments or visits I may had forgotten. I even checked my diary. Physical diary _and_ computer calendar. But, alas, there was no trace of any missing or forgotten sojourns anywhere. I spent so long fidgeting I jumped in fright when a tiny knock rapped smartly against my door.

"Come in," I said authoritatively, smoothing the front of my blazer.

"Excuse me..." Christa's bell-like voice sung out as she cautiously opened the door.

Her cropped blonde hair swung into the room like a halo, her almost unnaturally big blue eyes peeking around the wood. Her dewy almond skin was offset brilliantly by a shock of fuchsia lipstick that matched her vivid pink blouse. She smiled excitedly and looked behind her into the hallway at someone I couldn't see.

The door was pulled wide and Christa moved in to the room, looking sharp in her intensely coloured outfit. Behind her stood a tall man with soft, rounded features wearing a meek but pleasant smile. His dark hair was coiffed in a soft wave and his cheeks were dusted with noticeable freckles that stood out on his fair olive skin which looked rich and smooth in a cream shirt and vest the shade of true Italian mocha.

"Jean, this is your new personal assistant, Marco Bodt!" Christa beamed.

I knew HR had been planning to employ a personal assistant for me since I assumed my new role, something I was greatly looking forward to. Someone to lighten my work load and help out around the office was going to be great. Especially if she was a cute girl like Christa... I had no idea they'd hired someone, hell, I had no idea they'd even been interviewing people, though if I knew my colleagues, I knew they would have wanted to keep this on the down low as a surprise. Honestly, I was shocked completely that I hadn't even caught the faintest wind of this from anyone.

"Hello, it's nice to meet you," the man's voice was gentle yet held surprising presence in his formality.

My eyes grew wide, eyebrows vacationing dangerously close to my hair line. People often described a deep, fluttering emotion upon seeing someone's face for the very first time, like a curling hot lick of flame against their insides. I knew I was feeling it. I knew there was no way I could escape it. One look was all that was needed to know...

I hated him.


End file.
